How Much Does a Flat Removal Cost in London?

Ask what a flat removal costs in London and you will usually get a number for the size of the flat. That is only half the answer. Two identical 2-bedroom flats, one on the ground floor and one on the 4th floor of a block with no lift, take the same van, the same crew and the same drive across town, and still end up with very different prices. In London, where most people live in flats, the floor and the lift are often the biggest line after the move itself.

This guide works out the full price of a flat move from our published rate card: first by size, from a studio to a 3-bedroom flat, then for the same flat on the ground, 2nd and 4th floor, with and without a usable lift at each end. Then it adds the lines that change a London flat move most: parking, the Congestion Charge, packing and dismantling. Every figure is computed from the same rules our quote form uses, so a rate change rewrites the article.

Every flat move on our rate card is priced the same way: an hourly rate for the vehicle and crew, the hours the job takes, and a charge per mile of road between the two addresses. The time starts when the team arrives at your collection address and covers loading, driving and unloading. It is rounded up to the next half hour and never charged below the vehicle's minimum. The table uses the vehicle and crew our quote form suggests for each size of flat, on a 6-mile move within London, on a weekday, ground floor at both ends.

Three things stand out. First, the jump from a studio to a 1-bedroom flat is the biggest step in the table, because a 1-bedroom flat usually needs the Luton Box Van instead of the Small Transit (SWB), and twice the loading time. Second, the drive is the smallest part of every job: 15 min and £12 in mileage on the 2-bedroom move, against 6 hours of loading and unloading. Third, a 3-bedroom flat moves up to 3 movers and the 7.5 Tonne Lorry, because the load is bigger, not because the distance changes.

These are estimates for a typical amount of furniture. A sparsely furnished 2-bedroom flat can fit a smaller vehicle, and a 1-bedroom flat with a big sofa, a king-size bed and a wall of books can need more. A room-by-room list is what turns the table into your price. How much house removals cost in London sets out the same rate card for houses, and moving a flat in London covers what to check at the building itself.

London is the only part of England and Wales where flats are the usual home. The Office for National Statistics reported from the 2021 Census that more than half of London households lived in a flat, maisonette or apartment: 54.0%, or 1.8 million households. Every other English region was between 11.4% and 21.6%, and Wales 12.5%.

Our own borough data, generated from the Census accommodation type table on Nomis, gives the same figure: across the 32 London boroughs, weighted by the number of households, 54% live in a flat. The spread between boroughs is wide. In Westminster, 90% of households live in a flat; in Havering, 23%. In 15 of the 32 boroughs, flats are home to more than half of all households.

That is why we price stairs and lifts openly rather than hiding them in the hourly rate. For a house move, the access is roughly the same from one job to the next. For a flat move it ranges from a ground-floor conversion with the van at the door to a 5th-floor walk-up on a red route, and a single hourly rate cannot be fair to both.

Here is the part of the price the size table leaves out. The chart takes one 1-bedroom flat and one 2-bedroom flat and moves each of them 6 miles, with the same vehicle, crew and hours, from and to different floors. The only thing that changes is the stairs. Switch between the two flats to see how the stair lines grow with the size of the job.

Read along the bars and the pattern is plain. A 1-bedroom flat from a 2nd floor with no lift to a ground floor adds £160. With no lift at either end, the same 2nd-floor move comes to £780.80, and from a 4th floor to a 4th floor £1,100.80, which is 58% stairs. For the 2-bedroom flat, a 4th floor with no lift at either end adds £1,440 to a £1,052 move, so the stairs cost more than the move itself.

The lift rows show what a usable lift is worth. A 4th-floor flat with a lift at both ends that takes the furniture costs exactly the same as a ground-floor one. Lose the lift at only one end and the 2-bedroom move goes from £1,052 to £1,772. That is why the lift is the first thing to check at both addresses, before you compare quotes.

The rule is short. Each person on the crew, the driver included, is charged £10 for each flight of stairs, for each hour the team spends at that address. A floor counts as 2 flights, so a 2nd floor is 4 flights and a 4th floor 8. The hours are the loading hours at the collection and the unloading hours at the delivery. The ground floor is free, and a working lift that takes the furniture removes the charge at that address.

Because the charge follows the people and the hours, it grows with the size of the flat. A bigger flat has more people carrying for longer, and every one of them climbs the same stairs. This table shows the stair line at one address with no usable lift, for each size of flat on our rate card.

On our current rate card the loading and unloading hours are the same for each size of flat, so the same floor costs the same at either end. If both flats are upstairs, add the two lines together.

Stair charges are not raised on evenings, Sundays or bank holidays: the surcharge applies to the hourly rate, not to the stairs. How the removal stairs charge works goes through the formula in detail, with split-level flats, mezzanines and basements.

A lift removes the stair charge only when it does the work. A lift that takes boxes but not the sofa, the wardrobe or the bed frame still leaves the crew carrying the large items down the stairs, so the stair line applies at that address. If you are not sure whether your lift is big enough, say so. Our quote form treats an unconfirmed lift as something to check rather than guessing either way, and the team confirms it with you before the price is final.

What to find out about the lift at each address:

• Does it take furniture? Measure the inside of the car, the door opening and the height, and compare them with your largest items
• Is it working? A lift out of service on the day turns a lift move into a stairs move
• Can it be booked? Many London blocks expect a booked slot, and some switch a lift to service mode for moves
• Is there a goods lift? If the block has one, ask the managing agent how to book it and whether the large items can use it
• What are the building's move hours? A slot that ends before the job does costs time

How to book a goods lift for moving day has the email to send building management and how long a slot to ask for, and moving into a tower block or new build covers concierge rules, insurance certificates and car-free developments.

Most of a flat move is carrying, and every trip is from the flat to the van and back. If the van can stop at the door, each trip is short. If the nearest legal space is round the corner, every box, chair and bag makes the longer walk, and the hours grow. We do not put a fixed number on that, because it depends on the street, but the cost is easy to see: on the 2-bedroom move, every extra 30 min of carrying costs £80 at that job's hourly rate. Since time is rounded up to the half hour, even a few extra minutes can tip the job into the next one.

A parking suspension reserves space outside for the van. You apply to the council and pay its fee, and we plan the van and crew around the bays you book. The fees vary a lot, and some councils reduce them for a home move:

• Camden. Camden charges £66.66 admin per suspension and £79.63 per space for one day. If you are moving home, there is no space charge on the first day for up to three consecutive spaces, and no short-notice charge
• Southwark. £93 admin + £53.15 per space per day, so a single space for one day is £146.15 on the figures we hold
• Hackney. Hackney discounts the bay fee for up to three bays on the first day of a suspension booked for moving home

Our parking suspension finder lists the rules, notice and fees for 31 London councils, and parking suspensions for moving day explains how to apply and how far ahead. For a studio or a small 1-bedroom flat, a suspension can cost more than it saves if the van can stop briefly in a loading bay close to the door. Tell us what the street is like at both ends and we will say whether one is worth it.

If keys, a lift or a concierge keep the crew waiting, waiting time is £40 per crew member per hour. On a flat move, waiting is usually about the building, not the road, so confirm the lift slot and the key handover the day before.

• Congestion Charge. If either address is inside the zone during charging hours, the charge is added to your quote as its own line, at what TfL charges. TfL charges £18 a day when paid on the day or in advance. The hours are 07:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and 12:00 to 18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays
• ULEZ. Our vans meet the standard, so a ULEZ charge is never added
• Tolls. If the route crosses a toll, such as the Dartford Crossing on a move out of London, it is added at cost

For most flat moves within London, the Congestion Charge is the only road line that can appear, and only when one of the flats is in central London. Congestion Charge, ULEZ and red routes on a London moving day covers red routes, loading rules and the Low Emission Zone.

If you would rather not pack yourself, our packing service is priced as a package by the size of the home, with the materials included. It is only offered with a removal, never on its own. You choose the packing date when you ask for a quote: the day before the move, the morning of the move, or another day. Packing the day before means everything is boxed and ready when the removal crew arrives, so the move day runs to its estimated hours.

Each package includes a set allowance of boxes, tape, bubble wrap, paper, stretch wrap and mattress covers for a normally furnished home. A flat with a large kitchen, a book collection or fragile items may need more, and specialist cartons for TVs, pictures and mirrors are quoted separately. Extra packing time is £40 per packer per hour. Packing packages start at 1 bedroom; for a studio, tell us what you have and we will quote the packing with the move.

Packing yourself is the single biggest saving, but only if it is finished. A flat that is half packed when the crew arrives is packed on the clock, at the removal rate. Our checklist for moving in London has a week-by-week plan.

Narrow stairwells, tight turns and low ceilings on the landing are where flat moves get stuck. A wardrobe that was built in the bedroom, or a bed frame that came up in pieces, usually has to leave the same way. We do not hoist furniture through windows. Instead, the crew takes it apart, carries it down in pieces and, if you book reassembly, puts it back together at the new flat.

Dismantling is priced per item, only with a removal, and confirmed as part of the removal quote. There is a £90 minimum booking. These are some of the items most often taken apart in London flats:

The minimum matters on a small job. Taking apart one standard bed costs £50 on the list, but with the £90 minimum the line comes to £90. A king-size bed and a 3-door wardrobe, both dismantled and reassembled, come to £250, well above the minimum. Sliding, mirrored, fitted and IKEA PAX wardrobes are priced after photos or a survey, because they vary so much.

Dismantling also speeds up the stairs. A bed frame in pieces makes several quick trips instead of one slow one round every turn, so it can shorten the hours at an address with no lift. If a sofa is the problem, what to do when a sofa won't fit up the stairs explains how to measure it, which doors to take off and when a sofa can be taken apart.

To see how the pieces add up, here is one 2-bedroom flat moved 6 miles on a weekday, from a 4th floor with no lift to a 2nd floor with no lift, packed the day before by our team, with a king-size bed and a 3-door wardrobe taken apart and rebuilt, and one address inside the Congestion Charge zone. Each line is the one that would appear in the written quote.

The move itself is £1,052. The stairs add £1,080, packing £600 and dismantling £250. Any parking suspension is paid by you to the council and is not in our total. If the new flat had a lift that took the furniture, the delivery stair line of £360 would go, and if you packed yourself, £600 would come off. Most of the cost in a London flat move is a choice or a fact about the building, not the distance.

These are real flat moves from our booking records with at least one end in London, anonymised to the area. The prices are what customers booked at the time, under our earlier pricing, which charged a price for a time slot. The miles are straight-line distances between the two postcode areas, not road miles. Read them for the size of each job and the time it needed, not as today's rates.

The two-day job shows how a flat move grows when packing and unpacking are added: the move itself was short in miles, but the work ran across two days with a bigger vehicle and crew. The 1-bedroom flat moved across London was booked for a few hours with two movers, while the one that left London needed most of a day, because of the drive. That matches the rate card today: the size of the flat sets the crew and vehicle, and the work at each door sets the hours.

Every figure above is an estimate for a typical flat. Your written quote is built from your own move, and these are the things that move it up or down. Check each one before you compare quotes:

• How much you own, not the bedroom count. A full inventory, room by room, decides the vehicle and crew
• The floor at each end. Count the flights, including any short flight to the front door
• The lift at each end. Whether there is one, whether it works, and whether the large items fit
• The carry. How far the van can stop from the door, and whether a suspension is needed
• Building rules. Move hours, lift booking and any deposit the managing agent asks for
• The day and time. Evenings add 15% and Sundays and bank holidays 20% to the hourly rate; Saturdays add nothing
• Short notice. No premium. A move of up to 2 bedrooms booked by 2pm can often be done the same day, if a van is free
• Packing. Our package, or you pack and seal everything before the crew arrives
• Dismantling. Which beds, wardrobes and tables need taking apart, and whether you want them rebuilt
• The Congestion Charge. Only if an address is inside the zone during charging hours
• Distance. Mileage at £2.00 a mile on the 5.5 Tonne Lorry, and more driving time for a move out of London

Whatever the size of the flat, every move with us includes:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

Start from our flat removals in London page, which covers studios to 3-bedroom flats with the same rate card. If you are moving a house rather than a flat, or a flat with a garden and a shed, our house removals in London page has the larger vehicles and crews. Either way, the quote shows every line in this guide for your own move, and the London removals team can tell you which van and crew suit your flat if you are unsure.